P4 vs Athlon Xp

[Zak33]

Simple.......why do people buy P4?

Its definately more stable under heat...so thats good...and the heatsink mountings are way better.....

but other than that.....why ?

I got this P4 on a GV platform and 512mb of DDR......

I got an XP on an nForce.....if I run it single channel....at 2gig or even less....

IT WHOOPS THE P4..........Hexus PiFast is MILES apart...MILES and MILES?

Is that just the chipset?

I like this MSI Hermes....its tiny, neat, loaded with gear.....but PROCESSING POWER>......dont think so....

[steve threlfall]

I like my athlon rig but i dont know enough to say if p4's are faster or not

[Zak33]

Its what I wanna know from the guys who have BOTH.....

I realise my nForce bandwisth is supposedly better.....but if I run it at 133DDR and 12.5 = 1663 CPU speed....with the same stick of memory....

and then run this P4 2gig....guess its 100fsb, although the BIOS does show its mem is at 133.......(I know so little about P4's..sorry..its a B chip I think).......Quad pumped....yeah right....what exactly is quad pumped......?

cos it sure aint processing power....its an Intel chipset.....I guess as its doing graphics and stuff its under load, BUT...none the less....

[steve threlfall]

I have both but one is a custom built up to date machine (see sig) whereas the other is a few years old, factory built acer with a p4 1.6 and 512 sdram (insurance company replacemt comp).

[BlackSheep]

Dunno why but even when both machine are evenly matched on benchmarks - P4 and XP the XP machine always seems faster around the OS (opening appz etc...) - I have always given the following analogy for the 2 different camps, which best describes my experience of it to date:

AMD is like a racing car and tends to run very quick, but runs on the edge and will therefore more likely fall over or suffer problems

Intel is like a seasoned roadster - a nice meaty Dodge Viper - which will run along at a nice consistent top speed and not appear to be threatening the integrity of the system in doing so - therefore suffer less problems than the AMD

some of the problems I have had with my current AMD rig - which might be down to the fact that I'm raping the a$$ off it are as follows:

>> sound glitches in UT - sound sometimes fails altogether (once a week tops) and only a reboot will cure it

>> graphics glitches in games in general - monitor loses signal (for a fraction of a second) from graphics card (doesn't seem to happen on the Intel board).

I'm running both P4 and AMD atm and I prefer the AMD for gaming as it provides that little bit extra umph - it might be different if I had a springdale/canterwood though and was running a P4 3.2 overclocked

P4 system:

2.4Ghz @ 2.8Ghz
Asus P4PE i845
512MB DDR cas 2
80GB IDE Maxtor Plus 9 (8MB cache)

AMD system:

1.47Ghz @ 2.3Ghz (you guessed it ... 1700XP JIUHB DLT3C)
Abit NF7-S rev. 2
1024MB Corsair XMS3500 Cas 2 (dual channel) - was 512 until recently
34GB SCSI U320 15krpm

I have run the SCSI drive on both systems and it still feels faster on the AMD machine - but then I suppose PR rating-wise the AMD system exceeds the P4 by 20%-odd anyway.

If I had the money to buy the ultimate gaming system, at the present time this would best be spent on a P4C

[Agent]

The heat issue with AMD's is gettng to be an old myth now.
While it used to be true, the difference between the new XP's and P4's is very small.
And IMO P4's are overpriced for what they are.
XP 2800 are <£120
P4 2.4gighz ~£215

There is not much betwen them in performace difference, not to justify about £100.

[chrisf6969]

Lets hear from someone who has both systems equally maxed. Blacksheep is close but his Intel system is a little weak. It'd be better if he had a 2.4 C (800FSB) on an 865/875 mobo.(dual channel).

I like the comparison...... It like comparing a souped up mustang to Dodge Viper. The mustang could be faster off the line (FPU), but the Viper may have a higher topspeed (Mhz). And it depends what type of race you're running. The longer pipeline Intel will win the long road race. But The XP will win the short quick red light race (Office Apps, etc.)

Both are good for different things.

[TiG]

The differences between my 2.4P4C @3Gig and my 2600xp shuttle is not that great.

My shuttle wins the pifast hands down, still don't know why (shuttle has got 1gig of ram against 512mb in the canterwood)

But I have to say my intel rig is so much quieter. and for refernce my 2.4C was only £145inc vat when i paid £160 for my 2600xp a fair few months back now tho...

I do agree the P4C's are very expensive, but intel can afford to do this. At the top end of the scale now a p4c with ddr400 will absolutely cane a amd system, whether it be at 2.3Ghz or more.

Sure you're going to pay a huge price premium for the intel rig, but if you want #1 performance its going to be intel at the moment.

Again i'll bet i'll get loads of crap telling me i'm wrong but i personally think you'll get a better overclock from a 2.4p4c than you would from a 2800xp athlon. If you don't believe me go read www.asusboards.com under the intel forums, people are running canterwood boards at 300FSB!!. Especially with some of the new Kingston 500mhz DDR mem.

Hope this helps?
TiG

[Zak33]

Originally posted by Agent
The heat issue with AMD's is gettng to be an old myth now.
While it used to be true, the difference between the new XP's and P4's is very small.

now THAT can't be right...and I know that ONLY too well.....so pls dont be offended Agent...but thisis what happened recenltly...

the XP1700 runs good as gold at over 2gig.....but with an SK6 and a 5000rpm ystech...and 6 case fans....it still crashes when it gets really hot........OK THATS MY FAULT...dont overclock.....

move on tho.....built this MSI Hermes....timy case, NO ROOM for air movement.......at all.....2 tiny little fans.....sucking air into the front left side and then a heatsink with air sucked THROUGH it........

BUT...this is gonna kill ya........when I first booted....I formatted a 30gig hard disk.....and fiddled in BIOS ...that took 15 minutes....

and the fan wasn't turning at all......not at all........

and it didnt crash.......

Even if my Athlon was at default 1470.....AND if the SK6 jeatsink had beenon it with the 6 case fans.,.....it WOULD have locked........with no heatsink fan....infact it might have DIED..

So there a 1 up for P4......

Further.......the voltage regualtion must be better....or I just got lucky...AGAIN.......cos the 200W PSU.....little to my knowledge....was blocked by a cable tie......the Ribbon cables in this case are CRAMMED in.....and I didnt realise until after 5 hours that the PSU fan wasn't turning......at all.....

it only locked up half way through 3d Mark 2001....

[Byatt]

P4s will always get whooped in pifast, I expect, because their floating point unit is pants compared to that of the athlon.

Frankly the P4 feels like a better rounded processor, but tbh I wouldn't buy them, purely for cost reasons. There's no point spending £150+ more on an equivalent P4 (and P4 motherboard, also more expensive), I believe.

[TiG]

Fraid so Zak, Intel have now got tremendous Heat issues, on the top of the range systems. 3.2Gig p4c is bad enough but the dev situation with prescott is about 100Watts heat generation compared to AMD's top of about 74? iirc. (maybe 84 with you guys o/c it that much)

TiG

[TiG]

I don't think we're discussing bang per buck here slick. Just the plain technology.

I'm sure a 1700xp wins bang per buck hands down. Esp with some of the o/c's you guys have got.

Tho the 2.4PC is very nice little o/c too. Maybe if i was more into it i'd have mine up to 3.6gig like some others too.

TiG

P.S slick did respond, but appears to have deleted his post......

[acidrainy]

Originally posted by Agent
The heat issue with AMD's is gettng to be an old myth now.
While it used to be true, the difference between the new XP's and P4's is very small.

Couldn't agree more! my AMD XP ship runs at a cool 43 degs with a 900MHz overclock! Try that with a P4

[Zak33]

WellI stand by my findings.....this thing ran with NO FAN for 15 minutes....

wish the AMD luck with that

[directhex]

P4 is the daddy for things like media encoding. a P4 will save you a few hours per movie on BiCubic Filtered XViD creation.

and lo, i have a P4

let's also bear in mind that generic x86 apps (like Pifast) do better on AMD, but apps which take advantage of the direction INtel have moved into with the P4 will speed along - notice again that Virtualdub has a special P4 version to take full advantage of the better P4 media encoding abilities.

--jo

[TiG]

Originally posted by acidrainy
Couldn't agree more! my AMD XP ship runs at a cool 43 degs with a 900MHz overclock! Try that with a P4

36°C idle with a 600mhz overclock on my p4, running a fairly generic p4 non copper cooler.

TiG